Ian D. Skennerton

[Bruce_in_Oz]

I have known IDS since I was a teenager; we lived in the same town and I bought my first P-14 from him.

He trained as a musician, but was always keen on old guns.

His first book (1975) was a thin, hardback job: "Australian Service Longarms", now long out of print, it was / is an introduction to a history of such arms in Australia, from the "Marine and Militia Pattern musket to what was hot in 1975. The last entry is for the M-16.

My signed copy is number 116 .

One of the tings he rapidly discovered is that just about every text available had been cribbed from someone else's previous books and magazine articles. NOBODY seemed to reference primary sources for text or technical illustrations.

He ended up in the UK for several years in the late 1970's, trawling through mouldering archives, assisted by input from some of the last greats in that field.

The UK government was busy "culling" archives "chronologically" and for all I know, probably still is.

Being a camera buff, he did all of his own photography where possible. This was in the days before digital, so he set up his own darkroom so that the illustrations intended for publication were optimized for "dot-screening' and of suitable contrast / brightness.

After the first couple of small books and prodigious amount of research, he decided that he needed to control every step of the process up to the final printing and binding.

Thus, he bought an IBM "Compositor"; essentially a hot-rodded IBM "Golfball" typewriter. Remember that this was happening in the mid 1970's. These Compositors have a MEMORY and respond to "flags" for font changes. The trick was to type in the text, then put in "flags" for font-changes. Fore example, it would "replay" the 14 point bold for the start of a heading and "pause" while you changed the "golfball' for ten-point standard for the sub-heading and then again for the ten-point italic for the "sub-notes.

Anything bigger than about fourteen point, or requiring a "fancy" font, was done MANUALLY, using "Blick Letraset" dry-rub sheets. There is probably a video on "that site" about such exotic technology.

All of this "robot typing" was done on sheets of fine-grade, white glossy paper. These were then cut up and allocated a position on a "page" and lightly glued down, along with any illustrations. Text and images were shuffled about as needed.

MONTHS of prep, just for a set of "print-ready" pages. And you had to keep in mind that in a bound, hardback, things are done in "sub-bindings" and you have to be careful because each "leaf" actually contains FOUR "pages", not two. Part of the trick was to ensure "fiddly bits' like footer page numbers, or even tiny slips of paper containing a corrected line of text did not "fall off the page", literally.

All this mountain of carefully prepared paper then went to a specialist photographer to prepare the masks for making the lithography plates that ultimately put printers ink on paper. But, before anyone went mad and rushed straight into a run of several thousand books, a trial run was made. The test product, including "page-folds" is then proof-read, again and evaluated for "layout" (and "lost" bits of text), before the "GO" button for true production begins.

Anyone who moans about the complexities of producing the office Christmas party flyer needs to get a life.

Now I'll go and make a coffee and get back to cleaning and lubricating my lathe so I can re-crown this barrel.


Cheers, and stay upright and breathing!